Regional Unemployment Continues to Rise

Unemployment continues to rise in U.S. metro regions, according to the December figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"Unemployment rates were higher in December than a year earlier in 371
of the 372 metropolitan areas and lower in one area," according to the
report. The Detroit metro continued to post the highest level of
unemployment--14.9 percent But Las Vegas saw the largest increase in
their jobless rate, which grew by 4.4 percentage points over the past
year. The number of metros with unemployment rates of more than 10
percent more than doubled from 42 in December 2008 to 138 in December
2009. Of regions with more than one million people, Oklahoma City and
Greater Washington, D.C. posted the lowest unemployment rates--6.0 and
6.2 percent, respectively.

Richard Florida is Co-founder and Editor at Large of CityLab.com and Senior Editor at The Atlantic. He isdirector of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto and Global Research Professor at NYU.
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